Romance of California Life eBook

“Did she?” asked Crayme. “Well,
I guess I was a good-looking fellow in those
days; I know Pike came up to me once, with a glass
in his hand, and said that he ought to drink to me,
for I was the finest-looking groom he’d ever
seen. He was so tight, though, that he couldn’t
hold his glass steady; and though you know I never
had a drop of stingy blood in me, it did go
to my heart to see him spill that gorgeous sherry.”

“She looked very proud of you,”
Fred repeated; “but I can’t see why, for
I’ve never seen her do it since.”

“You will, though, hang you!” exclaimed
the captain. “Get out of here! I can
think about her now, and I don’t want
anybody else around. No rudeness meant, you know,
Fred.”

Fred Macdonald retired quietly, taking with him the
keys of both doors, and feeling more exhausted than
he had been on any Saturday night since the building
of the mill.

FREE SPEECH.

[The following is quoted, by permission, from Mr.
Habberton’s volume, “THE SCRIPTURE
CLUB OF VALLEY REST,” published by G.P.
Putnam’s Sons, New York.]

The members of the Scripture Club did not put off
their holy interest with their Sunday garments, as
people of the world do with most things religious.
When the little steamboat Oakleaf started on
her Monday morning trip for the city, the members
of the Scripture Club might be identified by their
neglect of the morning papers and their tendency to
gather in small knots and engage in earnest conversation.
In a corner behind the paddle-box, securely screened
from wind and sun, sat Mr. Jodderel and Mr. Primm,
the latter adoring with much solemn verbosity the
sacred word, and the former piling text upon text to
demonstrate the final removal of all the righteous
to a new state of material existence in a better-ordered
planet. In the one rocking-chair of the cabin
sat Insurance President Lottson, praising to Mr. Hooper,
who leaned obsequiously upon the back of the chair
and occasionally hopped vivaciously around it, the
self-disregard of the disciples, and the evident inability
of any one within sight to follow their example.
The prudent Wagget was interviewing Dr. Fahrenglotz,
who was going to attend the meeting of a sort of Theosophic
Society, composed almost entirely of Germans, and
was endeavoring to learn what points there might be
in the Doctor’s belief which would make a man
wiser unto salvation, while Captain Maile stood by,
a critical listener, and distributed pitying glances
between the two. Well forward, but to the rear
of the general crowd, stood Deacon Bates, in an attitude
which might have seemed conservative were it not manifestly
helpless; Mr. Buffle, with the smile peculiar to the
successful business man; Lawyer Scott, with the air
of a man who had so much to say that time could not
possibly suffice in which to tell it all; Squire Woodhouse,
who was in search of a good market for hay; Principal
Alleman, who was in chase of an overdue shipment of
text-books; and Mr. Radley, who, with indifferent success,
was filling the self-assigned roll of moderator of
the little assemblage.